Title:New Task Force to Focus on Gender Equity at Georgetown

Above: Jane Aiken (L’85, Parent’14), Professor of Law and Gender Equity Task Force Chair

In March, Georgetown President John J. DeGioia announced the creation of a university-wide Gender Equity Task Force to assess how gender equity can be strengthened and encouraged among faculty and senior leadership.

Chaired by Jane Aiken (L’85), former vice dean and professor of law at Georgetown Law, the task force’s working group of 22 faculty members and two staff advisors is assessing institutional practices that lead to improved gender equity, looking at ways to measure accountability, and recommending specific, actionable steps that Georgetown can take to achieve its goals.

“Promoting gender equity doesn’t just ensure better outcomes for women; it ensures better outcomes for the students we teach and the research we produce,” Aiken says.

The task force, which began its work in April, will present its recommendations to DeGioia at the end of the 2018-2019 academic year.

“The fact that this is a presidential task force is very meaningful because it signals the institution’s broad support for the issues of equity and justice,” says Michelle Ohnona, a task-force member who will be chairing the subcommittee on teaching, learning, and curriculum. Ohnona is a professorial lecturer in the Women’s and Gender Studies program and program manager for diversity initiatives at the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship.

Ohnona says the task force’s initial work will reflect the needs of faculty and senior leaders from various backgrounds and in the future will add the perspectives of staff, AAP (academic and administrative professionals), and students.

“A lot of these issues are not unique to Georgetown, but there are specific ways in which inequity manifests itself here,” she adds. Ohnona says the committee aims to take as intersectional an approach as possible. “We don’t see the work of the task force being altogether detached from the goals around equity that the institution has articulated for itself, like racial justice and compensation. We see the task force as being embedded in all of those conversations.”

“Women hold a majority of faculty and staff positions at Georgetown, but majority isn’t the answer,” Aiken says. “We know that some fields have a label of ‘women’s work,’ and we want to recognize that there are disadvantages to that valuing system. I think now is an amazing time to be at Georgetown.”

Georgetown is one of 10 universities worldwide recognized by the United Nations as a HeForShe impact champion for gender equity.